[Economics of Game Prices]

I understand the pace of the thread and the lack of response. I was curious what your response would be, though - glad you pulled through.

Yeah, well, luckily it's slowing down a bit; I'm glad I could respond, too. Sorry it was so succinct.

I give you that (I believe I even added that in the post). Nonetheless, that's how your post is read, considering placement and context.

Understood. That's what I figured when I read your criticism.

They're not the same thing, so separate the two. Incomplete comparison is referring to the fact that you're simply saying 'It's pretty good' without a baseline, so continuing an argument from that point is confusing at best and hopeless at worst.

Oh, I see what you're saying now. Ok, that makes sense. Yeah, baselines would be nice... but that's capitalism's fault, not mine. You know, I've actually spent considerable time to trying to write down formulas that allow me to fairly calculate an object or service's worth, so that two different objects or services could not only be compared fairly, but so that a fair, constant value of "profit" could be figured into the equation, a kind of neo-capitalism that assumes profit is ok and tries to handle it as fairly as possible.

It's a fun exercise.

Disregarding the premise refers to the fact that you're changing what MaxFrost was saying earlier, essentially disconnecting the argument from his altogether. Perhaps that was your intention, but now it has nothing to do with the previous eight posts (in relative to when that post was made).

I don't think I was intending to disconnect, but I'm not really getting the criticism here, either. We're getting a little off-topic, but I think it's fair to say you could elaborate / explain this one a bit more; I'd let it post if I was a mod.

You did it again. You're assuming that your point of view is the point of view of the consumer. That is obviously not true, based on the response you've gotten here. The position you hold is neither the company's position nor the consumer's. Your position is an opinion of what the consumer might benefit from. There is a very large difference that's skewing the rest of the argument.

OOOOOOOOOOhh, I see what you're saying. I get it now. So, can I ask a question? I get that not all consumers view value the same, but do all consumers want to pay as close to 0 for a product or service as possible? Generally speaking, not personally. Because, that's all I've been trying to argue about consumers so far: that they want, or should want, to pay as little as possible for something.

That's not the fallacy. I worded it incorrectly, my mistake. Here it is from Wikipedia - they word it much better than I do.

"The Nirvana fallacy is the logical error of comparing actual things with unrealistic, idealized alternatives. It can also refer to the tendency to assume that there is a perfect solution to a particular problem."

The problem is that your 'perfect solution' is proven to be impossible not only by theory but also by reason, logic and empirical evidence. Because the status quo isn't your ideal you're saying that it's 'bad' when your alternative is impossible.

Ok, a few things. One: the OCRemix post you linked to is one of my posts, so I think it's a mislink; I doubt you're trying to say I provided empirical evidence against myself in that post.

Two: that game theory article looks interesting. I'm going to have to go read that; thanks for the link.

Three: About the "perfect solution": when did I say it was perfect? I just said it was better. It still has flaws, namely that people are paying for digital media at all. Lowering prices may not benefit publishers AS MUCH, but they still get SOME benefit, more than a fair amount, AND it benefits consumers more, too. Sure, they take a hit for us to do better, but that's not unreasonable, unless you think grandma paying less for her vital medication because our labor gets taxed is a bad thing.

Mmm, now I honestly wouldn't mind that except every time you attack someone on making an assumption you're trying to strike down their inductive reasoning on that very same ground. Inductions are in fact fallacies when applied to a deductive argument (which is what you've demanded in this thread) - you've pretty much attacked everyone here based on that fallacy. I'm afraid you set the rules, here, so you're no exception to them. No inductions.

Inductions are, by definition, NEVER fallacies, actually. I'm studying the particulars of inductive reasoning in logic right now, so I can assure you with 100% certainty that they aren't. They can either be strong or weak, though, and that has to do with the inductive link between premises / conclusion. Unfortunately, that's a bit of a gray area, by design. Generalizations CAN be used, but when used against a deductive argument, and the two are mutually exclusive, the deductive argument wins by default (assuming validity and all true premises). Generalizations have their place, but they are DEFINITELY inferior to deductive reasoning.

That being said, as I said in my previous post, I did generalize there, and I do admit that and concede your point in relation to THAT argument.

A

nd no, I purposely did not chose the word 'generalization' because you need a sample to make a generalization. There is no reasonable sample for you to draw from, so for all intents and purposes you are making that bit up.

I am making an assumption here that most people don't follow market statistics. Don't have proof, but I think it's a reasonable claim.

Now go take care of your poor girlfriend. She sounds like she needs your help.

Yeah, cutting response short; crisis came up. Be back later, maybe, if not tomorrow.

[Economics of Game Prices]

(Note, I edited my last post while you were posting; it's important that you read it.)

I read it.

This is where you are deeply wrong. Explain how a resource being infinite somehow entitles people to receive it freely. The resource may be infinite, but the supplementary resources required to 'craft' it are not. And therefore, this holds no water.

Easy: air. Air is an infinite resource, isn't it? And IT'S free. Remember: all of economics relies on supply and demand. Well, what happens when something has an infinite supply? It's price reduces to 0, which is the converse of if the supply of an item is only 1 (the price is infinite, and thus the item is "priceless", like an original Van Gogh).

So, it takes money to make the game? Ok, that's fine, but it doesn't take money to copy or distribute it. So, that doesn't mean that copying it is wrong; that means the pay structure and how the devs get money is wrong, which is why copyright law wasn't intended for art, only for science and for tangible objects... which is obvious if you read the original wording.

When cloth buttons were invented, the button makers guild demanded that cloth buttons be made illegal because they weren't getting payed the way they used to. Well, digital media producers are acting the same way: now that we don't need them to copy the data for us, they're up in arms about how they get paid, and instead of changing the dynamic (like how artists release albums for free and take donations), they just outlaw whatever makes them obsolete.

Again, read that thread I linked to.

And in terms of the second half of your post... I'm at a loss to how it's supposed to tie together. You make two very contradictory statements, as far as I can tell.

Wait, second half? Can you quote me, so I know which part you're talking about?

EDIT@Your last edit:

So, basically, "you were wrong first, so that makes YOU wrong, but not US"? You can do what I supposedly do, and it's ok because I was "mean to you" first? How does THAT make sense? You do realize that I don't want ANYONE to "back down", dude. I want counter-argument. I just don't want people calling me a fuckstick, and I don't want people to say my supposed "meanness" somehow invalidates my argument. Come on, now; don't turn into the Damned on me.

[Economics of Game Prices]

You don't need that game. This point has been made repeatedly. Video games are a luxury, and as such, those who can not afford them should not be able to play them, regardless of the price. That takes priority over anything you're trying to accomplish.

And that statement makes you sound a lot like a

(Emphasis added)

Well, why not? It's an infinite resource, isn't it? That's the argument FOR piracy: that copyright law and the social construct that artists HAVE to get paid for their work is actually invalid. Did anyone read that thread I linked to about copyright law? Here, let me quote the Constitution for you:

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries

Where it says "useful arts"? The use of the word "arts" there is an old term, like how smithing used to be considered an "art". It doesn't actually MEAN "artwork" like painting or singing. See? If we hadn't changed copyright law, NO game company (nor any of you musicians) would be guaranteed ANY payment for your art, and digital piracy would be completely legal (except if a game had, like, revolutionary programming in it, or geth-like AI routines, but that'd have to be PROVEN to Congress before a copyright would be issued, and even then it would only last 2-5 years and couldn't be renewed).

So... who wants to go up against the Founders?

Um... Kenogu? You do realize that no one else here has admitted that any of MY points were valid (not RIGHT or CORRECT or TRUE, just VALID structurally). So... what exactly? Are you blaming me for doing exactly what you guys are doing (save maybe a few people)?

[Economics of Game Prices]

Ok, Gario, I'll do this fast:

RED HERRING - I didn't mean "overarching argument", I meant MY argument. My arguments, up until that point. I'm sorry if I introduced a new topic without realizing it, but I was responding to earlier posts.

INCOMPLETE COMPARISON / DISREGARDING THE PREMISE - Um... that's because I was agreeing with MaxFrost (that MMOs are cost effective if you only buy that game and have the time to play it consistently). I wasn't dodging, I just hadn't disagreed yet. I didn't feel it necessary to make a comparision when agreeing with someone.

PSYCHOLOGIST'S FALLACY - I'm arguing from the point of the consumer, while everyone else is arguing from the point of the company; I thought the company's side was pretty well covered, so there's really no point in covering it again myself. That's everyone else's job in this thread, apparently; I'm, like, the only one for consumer protection.

NIRVANA FALLACY - That's a BS fallacy; just because we have it good doesn't mean we can't want it to be better. It goes both ways. Even if we do, in fact, have it just so awesomely right now, it's somehow wrong to want it to be better than it already is?

FALSE ATTRIBUTION - This, I'll agree with you on. I am generalizing there (I think that's the word you were looking for) to illustrate a point. It's an inductive argument, also, not a fallacy; generalizing inductive arguments can be structurally strong AND logically cogent. Generalizations, in and of themselves, are not fallacies. You can read up on it more here.

*whew* Hope this doesn't double-post...

EDIT: Damnit, it double-posted.

[Economics of Game Prices]

Didn't you already ask me that? I thought you read my response. I find it funny that people are now criticizing me for only talking about the topic of the thread. If you'd like, we can just derail the thread into talks about medicine and schools.

[Economics of Game Prices]

Your argument is an appeal to wealth, actually, by definition. You want the rich people to give their money to the poor people because... well, they're rich, and you want the money yourself.

That's a faulty argument, in itself, not a valid one.

No, that's really not my argument. It's that if I'm to take economists at face value, the way you get to what the "best" price for something is has to do with people having a choice at where to buy their product. But, consumers DON'T actually have that choice. Example:

I want to play WoW. Blizzard has the best servers with the least bugs. They charge 15$ a month.

A private server has a few bugs. They charge 5$ a month.

Another private server is bug-FILLED. They are free.

I have choices. Right now, it's illegal for the last two private servers to exist at all, because of copyright law. They COULD provide a competing service to Blizzard, and give me a REAL choice as to where I get A product (singular): Blizzard, or one of the two private servers... but that's illegal.

Knowing this, publishers charge more for games, KNOWING that consumers only have the choice to get an entirely different game. This actually works in their favor, believe it or not, because I don't just want a game... I want THAT game. And I have to pay THAT price for THAT game.

Consumers should know this, and should take WHATEVER steps necessary to either change the dynamic (reform copyright law) or change the price (not buy it)... which is exactly what Zircon said, BTW (just don't buy it if you don't like it).

As to how this relates to piracy... well, consumers now AREN'T buying stuff... they're just pirating it.

That's not to even bring up the other five faults I brought up earlier.

Yeah, fast moving thread. That and I'm dodging back and forth between posting and helping my girlfriend with her homework (she had a... REALLY bad day, like, unbelievably bad, so I'm doing what I can), which is making it harder to respond to everything. All I can say is I'll get to it.

[Economics of Game Prices]

"Pitch a fit". NOW who's being hyperbolic? I'm not "pitching a fit", I'm giving a perfectly valid argument as to why consumers should WANT game prices down. They are, historically and with inflation, low. They are HIGH within the context of our current economic climate. I don't CARE how pricy games were 20 years ago, because that's not relevant to why a consumer NOW would have a valid reason to want producers to charge less.

What's crazy is that my argument isn't even an argument to emotion, which would be SO easy to do (consumers want cheaper games because they want cheaper games). It's a mathematical one (they want cheaper games because the producers can afford to make them cheaper).

I don't get the hate.

EDIT@The Damned: Um... this isn't a thread about schools? You guys keep asking me "why aren't you complaining about the cost of 'X'?", as if X is the current topic title. Simply, the Damned, schools should cost less, too, but in a different way: I disagree with the concept of a for-profit school. There are philosophical reasons for that I won't get into in this thread.

EDIT@Zircon: I think that's just one of my disagreements with capitalism in general (it doesn't account for consumer protection inherently, which I think should be a given; I think that consumer protection is as important as human rights protections, if we want to give corporations as much legal power as we do), but especially with copyright law. Right now, if I want to buy ME, I have to go to EA; no one else can produce ME discs at a lower cost than EA and thus there is no competition to lower prices. There is in a larger sense (game v game) but not in a product by product sense. That's why copyright is so destructive; two people selling potatoes are selling a directly comparable product. How do I compare two games and their relative worth? They are works of art; the HAVE no real value. It's apples v oranges.

[Economics of Game Prices]

Because this is a video game pricing thread. If this were a medicine pricing thread, I'd be all over that. Just because games are not essential goods doesn't mean consumers have no right to want them to cost less, especially if it's totally possible, mathematically, for them to.

[Economics of Game Prices]

Wee, this is going to be fun!

Just get to the "I know you are but what am I?" portion of this argument and get it overwith.

...there ISN'T one? When do I ever use that as a premise anywhere? Can you quote me saying that?

Holy shit, you made leaps that Evel Knievel would look at and go "oh fuck no". How do you go from being a thrifty shopper, to the price that immigrant workers get paid for a single portion of the necessary procedure to get it from potato to potato chip, bagged, shipped, in stores, ready to consume, to illegal business practices? Just...wow. No, I'm not even going to waste the time explaining how wrong this is. You should know better. Plus, again, way to look at a single point of production and compare it to total income. Keep it up, you're doing great!

Wait, potato chips? Also, illegal business practices? When did I talk about those? Also, I already figured in shipping, handling, bagging (for whole potatoes), the whole field-to-store process, by asking you to, for the sake of argument, ASSUME that the process cost 1$ per bag to produce. There were no logical jumps.

Product costs 5$ to buy.

Product costs 1$ to produce.

Company posts record profits.

Consumer thinks it's reasonable to be charged less.

Where, exactly, is the jump?

WoW was able to take from EverQuest, and other games have taken from WoW. WoW is just easily accessable. Who cares if it's got an installed player base? Hell, I know a lot of people that enjoy Coke products, that doesn't mean new soda manufacturers need to copy Coca-Cola's production line to get business.

At it's highest, Everquest had 450k subscriptions. As of October, WoW had 12 million. You can't really compare THOSE games. Also, what other MMO has ANYWHERE near 12 million players? WoW hasn't been anywhere CLOSE to losing the MMO top-spot in 7 years.

Well, you'd first off be running the risk of copyright infringement, but no, there's nothing saying you couldn't, nor that you wouldn't outsell them. However, it's about the bottom line. Sure, sell 1.5 million copies of a game at $50 and you end up with 75 million. However, sell 1.3 million at $60 and you end up with 78 million. It's the reason why the Wii sells more than most other consoles but PS3 and XBox 360 can still bring in more income.

Um, question: why would I ONLY sell 1.5 million copies? Who's to say I wouldn't appeal to other markets with a lower price? More casual gamers, or gamers that wouldn't usually try my game, but hey, the investment is less, so it's less of a risk.

You're pulling those numbers up like you plugged them into that magical economist-calculator that gives you most efficient selling point.

Have you seen the MMO market recently? With FFXIV, DC Universe, APB, League of Legends, MapleStory, and millions of free to play MMOs, there are tons of competitors, and many are holding their own.

I'm not saying they aren't succeeding. I'm saying they aren't succeeding from supplanting WoW as the dominant MMO. And, I even addressed that in the section you quote above by saying that WoW getting it's market share taken isn't the same as another game that ISN'T massively multiplayer because of social dynamics unrelated to game design (emergent gameplay stuff), because Guild Wars was free with BETTER production values than WoW and couldn't supplant it.

So, in the end, you're just bitching because you don't want to pay more when they make more money for making a better product. WoW may have a huge player base now but it wasn't something they instantly gained. It built up, and did so because they found a working formula. They still price it the same as any other MMO, and again, sometimes cheaper. If it was $200 a month I'd be right along side you. But $15 is change. I have $15 probably in my car right now. You can blame it on the price, I blame it on insane popularity and the mass player base. They're a business, and businesses need money to grow. That's ok though, you can stick with your "immigrant worker" analogy all you want and ignore the entire rest of the game development side of things.

Maybe if they hired immigrant workers at Blizzard they could bring their costs down even more and go swimming in vaults filled with gold...

What I'm saying is that I'm surprised consumers in general care so little about how much they have to pay. In a balanced market, the company tries its hardest to sell something at the highest price it can afford to, in an attempt to maximize profits... AND the consumer does what he can to make the company charge as LITTLE as possible because they don't want to pay a ton. If the company can AFFORD to charge less, the consumers should WANT them to charge less.

I'm just surprised that they don't, is all. They SHOULD. They ALWAYS should. They even have a good reason to, as I've illustrated (because Blizzard is kicking ASS). But they don't. Also, why is a consumer looking out for his best interests (paying the least possible for a good) bitching? Just because consumers want to pay as little as possible for a good or service doesn't mean they are "bitching". Again, they are looking out for their best interests, just like your companies supposedly are. If it's ok for Blizzard to, why isn't it ok for a consumer to?

Now, I'm REALLY surprised. I haven't even been remotely incendiary since DS told me to stop, and I'm STILL getting "fuckstick" and "you're a bad poster" and "you should stop posting" thrown at me. U MAD, guys? And if so, why?

[Economics of Game Prices]

Ignoring it? We're just presenting the cold, hard facts.

I love getting to use phrases people use against them.

Yeah, I'm going to ignore Neko's post because the premise is how I'm a "fuckstick", not how my argument is wrong. Unless he can somehow mathematically deduce how I'm a fuckstick AND make it relate to the concept of game pricing, it's not worth responding to.

Next.

Either way, look at the obvious things that just outright scream how wrong you are. Most MMOs do a base of $15 a month. Hell, many go BEYOND that. FFXI charged people an extra $3 for each character they had. $15 a month is extremely reasonable, considering what you get out of it. Lets say you play 40 hours in a month, which is small compared to most playtimes. That means that every hour you play, it costs you 37 cents. A 2 hour movie costs almost 25x as playing most MMOs. Oh, and the note of movies, really good ones tend to rake in millions, if not billions, over cost. I guess we should bitch that bigger, better movies that make more profit should lower their ticket prices because we're getting "boned".

You're talking about a different thing than I am, as is Zircon below you (so, Zircon, I'm addressing you both here). You're talking about game price as a function of worth, which is valid, and in which case 15$ a month may very well be a perfectly reasonable amount to pay (I don't think so, but that's my opinion). What I'M talking about is cost relative to expense, which is MUCH more important to an educated consumer because it lets them know if they are being taken advantage of at all.

For instance, I'm buying produce at the supermarket. I see potatoes on sale for 5$ a bag (10 lbs per bag). To me, looking at other stores selling potatoes in comparable amounts for 7$, that's a good deal. However, I go home (with my new bag of potatoes) and see a report on 20/20 about how not only are the migrant workers farming the potatoes are getting paid .10$ a day for their work, but the company that sells the potatoes only has to pay 1$ total per bag to produce it, and just posted record profits the previous quarter.

Now, is it illogical to be upset about the amount I paid for my potatoes, even though they were the cheapest potatoes in my town? Wouldn't it be in my best interest, as a consumer, to complain and to attempt to force the potato company to charge me less for potatoes? And wouldn't it be illogical, to say the least, for me to not only argue that I shouldn't complain, or that I have no right to complain, but illogical (in terms of what's best for ME, the consumer) to say that the company is free to charge me MORE?

Because that's what you're doing in this thread. You're arguing FOR the people who are charging you out the ass (provably so, according to the numbers). You know who you are? You're the same people who are arguing that food companies shouldn't be required to put nutritional information on food packaging because it's bad for business. Dude, it's BAD FOR YOUR HEALTH; is business somehow more important than your health?

Well, are Blizzard's incredible 2010 profits more important than you being able to save some money on your monthly gaming?

As well, again, companies have a bottom line of profit they have to reach. If Blizzard has something they supply for a very paltry amount, and still can make massive bank on it, good for them. I make $15 in less than an hours worth of work. Even on minimum wage, you're covered for an ENTIRE MONTH with 3 hours of work.

So, do you not try to save money where you can? I mean, hey, if you make so much money that you really don't care about throwing it around, good for you, but are you seriously telling me that if I gave you the option of paying 15$ for something, or paying 10$ for the exact same thing, you'd WANT to pay 15$ because it's better for Bobby Kotick?

You're right, they should lower it to $10, lose out on numerous profits, stint growth, and so on, just to save everyone an extra $5 a month. Great business plan. You should consider opening a game company, you'd do amazing with your "lets just break even" strategy!

Well, for MMOs, it's a bit different, because stealing market share from WoW also has to do with their installed playerbase, as well as the fact that there is a social structure in place, so if I wanted to take away players, I'd need to supplant WoW's already existent social sturcture (friends playing and such).

But, assume that I was going up against Rockstar. Assume, for the sake of argument, that I could make a game that played JUST as smoothly as Red Dead Redenption, was just as fun, had just as good of a story, cost the same to make... but I sold it for 10$ less. Are you seriously asserting that I wouldn't totally outsell them, assuming all other things equal?

Yes, WoW doesn't have a competitor to lower prices against. But, AGAIN, you, AS A CONSUMER, should want them to.

And the fact that you don't astounds me. Maybe YOU haven't had to give up gaming in order to have enough money to buy food, but I have, and I guarantee you, I want lower prices for games. I want to save as much money as possible in ALL aspects of life. Because that's in my best interests, as a consumer.

EDIT@Gario: Ooooooooohhh, no wonder we're on different pages here; we're arguing about TOTALLY different things. You guys are just out-and-out defending companies. You don't care at ALL about the consumer perspective. Yeah, you guys aren't even figuring that in. No wonder there's a dissonance. Ok, I see now.

[Economics of Game Prices]

In the interest of listening to DS and NOT getting onto tangents, I'm going to ignore that. Would anyone like to address the point that Blizzard has made enough in 7 years in subscription fees that they CAN, indeed, afford to lower the price of subscription to WoW? In fact, that they have made SO much and have SO many subscribers, that they can lower the price and STILL make an obscene profit?

And that PLAYERS should want them to do so, because it is in their best interest?

[Economics of Game Prices]

So you REALLY think it took OVER $7 BILLION to develop WoW? Because that's the income I got from WoW subscriptions, assuming a quarterly average of $250 million per quarter for 7 years (admittedly, a number I pulled out of my ass to illustrate a point)?

There's NO WAY even ALL of the dev costs for designing the game from scratch totals that... and even if it DID that article only talks about PURE SUBSCRIPTION PROFITS, not even taking into account money made from sales of the game discs / expansions / in-game items.

Yeah, I think Blizzard has covered their expenses.

[The Extra Credits thread!! EC is amazing!]

0% effective, in practice.

[Economics of Game Prices]

That's not really the argument, though. MMOs, in terms of price-to-value ratio, are probably the most efficient way to spend your money... IF you have a lot of consistent time to spend playing. The issue is with the price relative to the cost of producing the game. After all, when Blizzard is asked why they have a subscription model at all, they "claim" it's to pay for server maintenance and game world upkeep... but between 2004 (the year the game launched) and 2008, a whole four years, Blizzard only spent a TOTAL of $200 million maintaining the game... and that might include ALL expenses, including CEO pay, for instance, so who knows how accurate that really is and what they mean by "upkeep" (for instance, Bobby Kotick made over $900,000 in salary ALONE, not including bonuses and options... just in 2009).

Meanwhile, as I said earlier in the thread, Blizzard made $745 MILLION just in ONE QUARTER in 2010. One quarter.

So, while $15 MAY be a good deal, in and of itself, taken within the context of WHY you're supposed to be paying a subscription at all and just how much money those subscriptions are bringing in, it's painfully obvious that Blizzard makes the price 15$ because they are greedy, and because people are willing to pay it (probably because they don't know how much Blizzard is making off of them and how ripped off they are getting, in the big-picture sense). It COULD be cheaper, as cheap as 3$, potentially, and it SHOULD be cheaper, if Blizzard cared at all about its consumer base in a real, significant way. It SHOULD be cheaper, and people should be fighting to MAKE it cheaper.

But, hey, people don't care if they're getting boned by Blizzard / Bobby Kotick. What do I know; I'm just presenting the cold, hard numbers.

[Economics of Game Prices]

I was 8 when my dad bought me my first console (a Genesis), and he had to work for... a lot longer than I would have wanted him to in order to afford it (in retrospect, of course; 8 year olds tend not to care about those kinds of things).

Also, I don't care if games are cheaper NOW than they were THEN (with inflation); they're still too expensive. Really, everything is, with few exceptions, but we're talking about games here. Just because game prices are still around the same / a little less (with inflation) as they were in the 80s / 90s, that doesn't make it acceptable... that just means that they were too expensive back then, too.

Besides, neither one of us even brought up the premise that games are more expensive now, at least not in our recent posts. Just that they ARE expensive, relative to the costs of other forms of entertainment now. 60$ is a lot of money for an 8-10 hour experience (on average; there are outliers, like ME / RDR / MMOs).

[Economics of Game Prices]

This is a recent development, (last 2 years) and essentially unenforceable. You give someone physical media, they get to decide what happens to it. Companies are just now coming up with methods to make specific disks useless, but your DMCA argument is why things like digital distribution are becoming so large.

Yeah, well, they're TRYING to enforce it, that's for sure. Even against children. It's kind of a clusterfuck, and I'm sad that it's still going on.

Yes, those other companies sell games as well (Walmart is the #1 retailer of video games in both the USA and worldwide), but GameStop is a large enough percentage that those AAA companies are going to cater to them anyways, because they are attempting to regain as much money as possible to meet shareholder demands. And while you do have a true point on the EULA bit, often times a consumer is allowed to sell their product in it's entirety to another person. Microsoft's EULA for Windows and all it's other products actually says it. It's an interesting ready. It's a value proposition, where things are a bit more expensive because you have the opportunity to sell the license later to recoup your dollar.

Didn't know that about Microsoft's licenses, although I'm sure I would if I read the damn thing.

Thank Disney for the copyright hodgepodge. I'm not happy about this either. But it's not regulation needed here, but an overhaul of the copyright system in general. This is a separate argument, which belongs in a separate forum. Realize that a large part of this came about because the US Gov decided to give companies the same rights as individuals, and that these companies have essentially bought off the Gov. Pisses me off too, not much I can do except try to get measures in that reduce corporate involvement.

Well, I'm glad to hear there's someone else out there with common sense. The system is in DEFINITE need of overhaul.

Congrats then I guess? It's great you're a part of the American working public. But GameStop still says that brand new used copy of a used games costs 97% of the MSRP.

Oh, I wasn't looking for accolades or anything. You just said someone in the workforce can't or wouldn't hold my position, and I was giving myself as an example that you were mistaken.

While in the early history of the USA, this may have been true, the Gov realized that if the continued innovation was to be allowed to grow in the US, that a system had to be put in place to allow creative works to be locked in, and allow the creator to make money off of it.

That's the thing... that system didn't need to be put in place. Again, I'll direct you to the thread I linked to above for the full breakdown, but suffice it to say, it's a widely held belief that without copyright artists wouldn't get paid, and that is, historically, actually not true. It's a lie told because on the surface it makes sense, but history shows it to be nonsense.

Piracy sucks, especially when it hurts your neighbor, or your neighborhood, or yourself. You'll see many cases where we still rip off foreign companies, because there's no law in the world that says we can't. We just don't like it when we do it to ourselves. But Piracy is a moot point in terms of software sales, as it's just a number on a spreadsheet to me. Publishers are looking for and have found ways to combat this without imposing silly DRM on their customers. It sucks, but we're at a point now that dealing with it is the modus operandi.

Well, I wish software companies got that memo, because they sure as hell don't act as though "piracy is a moot point in terms of software sales"; if anything, their continued and constant litigation proves that they think it's QUITE relevant.

I'm asking you straight up, bring this back to why games cost as much as they do. No piracy, no copying, no copyright. Just pure economics. Same thing for the used game market. What drives consumers to pay the slight markdown from a company that is obviously taking advantage of the situation? GameStop has been doing this for years, as well as many other companies. GameStop is the only one still around. That right there should tell you that publishers have found ways to deal with the lost sales. With the advent of multiple Digital Distribution companies, there are also far more avenues where game prices can come way, way down (even AAA titles), and both gamers and developers see additional value as gamers get the games they want for the costs they want, and dev's get to see their audience balloon, and even more money roll in to pay for the next title.

First of all, a lot of it is social in nature. Americans are lazy and don't really care about protecting themselves as consumers. A lot of people KNOW that GS gives them a raw deal, but do it anyway. When I ask fellow gamers about it, they say "some cash is better than no cash", and "well, I can't change it", which is definitely NOT how they deal with consumer protection in, say, Europe (where they're protesting nearly every other week, it seems). GS gets away with a lot because we're a lazy people.

And, game companies have ALREADY ADMITTED that GS is a reason they charge more. Look at Project 10$. The fact that it even exists is known to be because of used game sales, and I count that as an added cost to games (obviously for used game purchasers). If devs got a cut of ALL used game sales, they'd make SO MUCH MORE money, which is what they want. EA found a way to do that through P10$, and I guarantee you it will pick up steam.

Of course, all of this revolves around an assumption that, if GS gave publishers a cut of the used game market, that publishers WOULD, in fact, reduce MSRP, which I don't really believe for a second would happen; games would still cost 60$. But, we'd at least take away one of their arguments, so that they have 1 fewer justification for charging so much. Chip away at the justifications one by one and you'll eventually arrive at the conclusion that they charge so much because they simply like those large bonuses, not because of rising dev costs or some other load of crock.

[Economics of Game Prices]

That's the problem though. As physical game copies are not licences but actual product to be sold, the right resell belongs not to the company, but to the consumer.

Actually, that's not entirely true. According to current copyright law (as it pertains to digital media) and the DMCA, when I buy a game, I'm not buying an actual game, I'm buying a disc with data, and a license to use the disc / data in a way the company deems fit; that's part of why breaking DRM, making game backups, hacking or modding your game, and other similar actions are so contentious. We, as consumers, have very few rights when it comes to purchasing digital media and using it. DRM is more "digital restrictions management" than it is "digital rights management".

GameStop used this privilege to create a market where game prices are more volatile, at the cost of more potential sales for the game publishers. And because GameStop also sells a lot of new games (can't have used game market without new games being sold first), game companies are a bit of a handicap as to how to deal with them. They can't rob of them of business, because pulling the plug from one of your largest retailers is a good way to slash your player-base in half, so they're looking for other methods.

Here's the problem: right now, the industry is too scared to piss off Game Stop, since they are the largest seller of video games; it forgets that Walmart, Best Buy, Target, and a whole HOST of other stores sell games now. The industry COULD, if they wanted to, include a little slip in the game or a blurb on the box saying that reselling the game constitutes a EULA violation, the EULA you implicitly agree to when purchasing the game (yes, implicit agreement to contracts is a law; I couldn't make that up if I wanted to). It's a slippery slope, of course, but it would finally bring to light one of the biggest problems with the DMCA, EULA laws, and the way the law deals with the used market: it's both legal to have a used market AND to restrict it through EULAs. Only one can exist: the right to sell something you've bought, or EULAs/DMCA. As far as gamers are concerned, we'd actually win either way, though the removal of the DMCA and the practice of EULAs would benefit us more. EDIT: The possible conflicts with this are all connected to the "first sale doctrine", whihch is supposed to be a restriction of copyright law allowing you to resell something you've bought. Implicit agreement is a powerful doctrine in its own right, however... The point is, it's murky, but could be made clearer through copyright law reform.

Regulation is a horrible way to do this. While theoretically it makes for nice consumer prices, it's not really the way things are done in this country. The country you grew up in. The market is king here, and honestly, it's the publishers fault that they didn't find a way to take advantage of the used game market sooner.

No, it's not. The market is king, except when the market isn't king. If the market was king, AIG wouldn't exist anymore. "Too big to fail" wouldn't be true in a free market society. In fact, in a TRUE free market, there would be NO restrictions at ALL... meaning no consumer protection laws or advocacy. No, the US has a rich history of regulating things, just usually in favor of business and not the consumer. After all, if the market REALLY was king, copyright law wouldn't be so boned today; instead, we, as consumers, are regulated from doing everything from making backups of software to installing that software on multiple machines (depending on the particulars of the DRM).

I do find it mildly interesting that you keep tossing out economics, but unfortunately, everything that happens in this country revolves around money at some point. While in college, you may get high and mighty about how things should be, but once you're out on your own, you realize that you don't get paid for ideals, but on how you get things _done_.

I AM on my own. My family kicked me out because they didn't approve of my girlfriend and didn't want to let me keep living in the States (they wanted me to live in Greece with them). I'm working for my money (hard, btw), and giving up much of my gaming because of it.

It's the same reason why we simply can't just throw our massive wealth at say, Nambia, and feed everybody, because if we did, we'd put everybody there out of work, destroy the local economy, and create a situation worse then the one already there. Supply/Demand, while oversimplified, is why I can say, "I will fix your computer for $50," and I can expect to get that money, because it's what consumers expect to pay for that particular service. For games, a luxury entertainment item, we can expect to pay a good amount from a AAA developer, not only because they sink a lot of time into the game, but because there's a legion of unseen stockholders who expect the company to produce money on that product.

Actually, according to original copyright law (as written in the Constitution), game developers are selling artistic works, and if the law hadn't been hacked into some Frankenstein monster in the early-mid 1900s, piracy would be legal today (you could only copyright works of science in the original law). In fact, piracy was legal many times in American history, as AltF4 lays out in his very thorough analysis of the history of the law.

[Economics of Game Prices]

Are you a communist?

Is that a serious question? (seriously asking)

[Economics of Game Prices]

So, you think it's ok that Game Stop is allowed to give you 25$ for a game trade in that they then turn around and sell for 50-60$? Yes, you could always make the argument that "you don't HAVE to sell to GS", but then, we could make the argument "you don't HAVE to get a mortgage for your house that's toxic and built so that you'll fail to pay it, causing a massive market crash", too. If the mortgage market can get regulated (and by the way, mortgages appreciate and depreciate in value, too, just like games and cars), a market for a non-essential item (hey, you could always choose to rent / lease; you don't HAVE to buy a house), why can't the used sales market?

[Economics of Game Prices]

Didn't you hear the mod? Back on topic.

[Economics of Game Prices]

I'm COMMENTING on your posting style because it's a PROBLEM. There is a reason that every single thread you participate in devolves into people basically saying "Jack, you don't know what the hell you're talking about; what the hell are you talking about and why are you posting massive walls of text?"

Yeah, there is: because I usually post on the opposite side of the majority opinion of OCRemix. Don't think this is my first forum; I went from "total nobody" to "one of the most respected posters" on SWF with EXACTLY this posting style (less refined, of course), and the reason I got so much hate and flak was because I was posting a contrary opinion. No one likes a contrary opinion, except REALLY mature people who can handle being challenged and NOT take it personally, which even took ME a while to develop (and I'm still not perfect at it; even I have a while to go).

This happens every single time because you just can't get it into your head the way people actually discuss things here. This isn't Smashboards and this isn't your college logic and philosophy class. Your arguments are incredibly naive and people always call you on it, and you always shrug it off and continue to hammer the same, flawed points over and over again. Stop doing that.

My arguments are hardly naive; if they were, they'd be all sunshine and roses and "there's no WAY a game publisher could try to take advantage of the system and its customers! No one's that mean!" If anything, I've been trying to address the issue from all angles so far.

This is OverClocked ReMix; these forums have a specific atmosphere and rhythm. Find it and learn to adjust to it, otherwise the same damn thing will happen every single time you post in any thread. Don't be verbose, be concise. Know what you're talking about; actually know what you're talking about. Realize that you're still young and afaik, still in college, and that your life experiences are actually pretty limited at this point in time. And please, for the love of God, stop saying things like "economists don't understand economics."

Don't really have a response to that, other than if a forum forcibly causes all of its members to conform to a particular speaking style or else he gets trashed every post, that's not a healthy forum atmosphere; discussion and debate relies and thrives on diversity, and if your forum members are actively punishing people who don't sound or post like them simply on the principle of "you're not posing like us", that's not a good community for discussion; it IS a good community for back-patting, though.

Furthermore, shut up about the trolling and discuss game prices like we're supposed to in here.

Finally. Yes, sir. If you have anything you'd like to add, I'll let you have the last word.

Now... on the topic of game prices, should there BE any regulation on the used game market? Because part of why we're paying so much for games is because Game Stop rapes the used game market, and does so with a business strategy that is purely parasitic, both towards the consumer AND the developer. If places like Game Stop had used game sales regulations in place, perhaps that used game sales HAVE to give a cut back to the original publisher / developer, does anyone think that'd affect game prices positively?

[Economics of Game Prices]

You know, "civility" doesn't mean "kissing ass". Again, the only person I've been out-and-out mean to is The Damned. Gario and Zircon, the other two big posters I've been responding to, have gotten NO vitriol from me. I've been frank, but I have been civil to them, I just haven't kissed ass.

Jack Thompson is just a douchebag; he treats EVERYONE like crap, even the people who try to treat HIM respectfully, AND on top of it, he can't even back up his points; at least I have valid arguments. Thompson's are as uncogent as they come.

Either way, you're still a moderator. Moderators (as far as I know) are supposed to be the best-of-the-best on a forum; they lead by example. You can think what you want about me, but posting trollpics is akin to Obama laughing in the face of the President of France; sure, he might not respect the guy, but it's hardly Presidential behavior.

EDIT: Actually, why are you even COMMENTING on my posting style, if not to tell me you'll ban me or something? This is SERIOUSLY off-topic from the thread's intentions, and I also thought the job of a moderator was to keep us on-topic. If so, you're doing a bad job of it; you should just be telling all of us (including me) to shut up about the trolling and discuss game prices like we're supposed to in here.

[Economics of Game Prices]

...and hypocritical? It's kind of hard to take a moderator at face value when he speaks out against flaming, and then posts a trollpic he made himself.

Sorry, dude, but that's not really the best way to prove your point. And it's not exactly classy moderation.

[Economics of Game Prices]

@Sephfire: I'm not going to quote you, since that'd just take up a lot of space, but to answer your queries:

University of Washington doesn't have any formal "debate" classes (they have a club which forms a team every weekend, but nothing official), but I think that's because their program is structured in a way that they think you won't need it: you incrementally learn good debate style throughout the curriculum. Either way, no school I've ever gone to offered debate; I grew up in Texas, and as we all know about them, if you're not playing football, they don't give a shit (8 years of choir, incrementally worse due to arts budget cuts... those bastards), but I've probably learned more about discourse and debate on the internet than I would have learned in a class, anyway.

I know I can come off as incendiary sometimes, but part of that is because of where I come from, 'net-wise. You have to understand, here you guys are all buddy-buddy all the time; you have no REASON to be heated on these boards... you talk about music, most of the time. I mean, what are you going to get passionate about, chord structure? I come from a background of competitive gaming forums, where the discussions we have, the arguments we make, the decisions we come to, cost all of us hundreds of thousands of dollars (Brawl brought in over 300k$ in 2009, and I helped debate the ruleset for that); passion tends to come out, but we view that as OK, because it’s real and its frank.

The internet is the great forum of anonymity: political correctness means nothing here, but that's one of its strengths. You can be more passionate on the internet because, ultimately, it makes no sense to take something an anonymous guy says personally; just shrug it off and move on. I think it's really funny how at arms people get because of MY posting style... there was someone I used to debate with online, a Swedish guy named Yuna. Oh man, he was incendiary, he was insulting, he was passionate, blunt, frank, and he was, I assure you, 100 times worse about insulting people than I was.

But the guy was right, and made sure he was, and did his research, and always had well structured arguments. I'm so glad I had him yelling at me, calling me names online for 6 months, because it taught me that a person =/= his arguments (the MOST IMPORTANT FACET of debate, in my eyes), and that you CAN'T take everything you hear on the internet personally. You just can't. You HAVE to be able to shrug it off.

The only person I've been out-and-out cruel to has been the Damned, and we've gone on all the tangents. Cut those posts out, and I've been frank with people, but not out-and-out insulting. Because, this is internet, and I can call out stupid stuff more frankly here than I can anywhere else. It's ridiculous: we never really call people out in real life because of PC. People act self-destructively, allowing themselves to be abused physically, emotionally, financially (I always laugh at my grandparents because Faux News has conditioned them into protecting the interests of corporations that really want nothing more than to screw them in the worst possible ways; only a stupid person would have a physical dependency on medicine, and then argue that the only companies they can get it from should have a RIGHT to sell it at 500% markups, something that is OBVIOUSLY not in their best interests). The fact of the matter is that people take everything so personally that they can't take honest, unfettered criticism anymore. I love it when people call me an idiot (if I'm AM being one), because it snaps me out of whatever I'm doing and MAKES me reflect on it... and sometimes, I find out I'm doing something self-destructive, and I stop.

Now, I concede that being a dick for no reason, just for the sake of being a dick, is wrong, and gets you nowhere. But I want people to be angry, I want the people I debate with to feel emotion and passion because it's that very emotion and passion that makes you hold your beliefs in the first place, and there's no motivation to change anything, be it the world around you or yourself, without passion. Your video was great, but it was so nice that I can't imagine anyone stopping pirating because of it because it probably won't make them passionate enough to WANT to stop. You laid a brilliant logical foundation, but are relying on people to build on that foundation without really giving them a passionate reason to want to. I applaud you for being civil, and for laying out the facts so well, and only time will tell how much it really effects things, but that was my honest criticism: it lacked a spark of passion that would motivate people to really act on your information.

Being non-abrasive gets people to sit down and hear to you, but it rarely gets people to really listen. There is a time and place for it, I agree, and I (obviously) don't debate with people IRL the same way I debate online (that would be overkill), but if I can't be frank on the internet, the last bastion of TRULY free speech on the planet, then how can I EVER hope to be frank it real life? Because I don't like sugar-coating, and I refuse to do so for the sake of not offending people; sometimes, people should be offended.

I know that's long, but it's my rationale. Take it for what it is.

EDIT@The Damned: I don't care because you still haven't learned that my arguments =/= ME. I could tell you that I'm a KKK member, a staunch racist, and that I think we should bomb all people who are not like us, and although all three of those views are demonstratively retarded, they would make only my arguments on game piracy and pricing no more or less valid. Ok, so you could prove that I called you stupid before you called me a name (I consider your tone before then indignant and insulting enough to warrant the term "stupid", but as I said to Sephfire, being a dick just cause is wrong, and nobody is perfect, which is why I apologized), but does that invalidate my arguments? No, and if you think it does, than you're really, truly, honestly more of a fool than I originally thought, and you have much to learn. Again, I'm not going to mince words here: you need to learn that a person is logically separated from his arguments; this is NOT debatable, this is a FACT of logic.

[Economics of Game Prices]

You haven't addressed the claim that I started the insults, when you clearly did. You have made a false statement. False statements should be addressed, as you have routinely made it clear. Unlike the ones you claim we have made and ignored, this one can be proven by provided evidence.

I ask only that you respond to it in the manner you would like us to.

...

Honestly, I don't care anymore. I really don't. I'm tired of dealing with irrelevant stuff. You want me to say "I'm sorry" for calling you stupid? Fine, whatever, I'm sorry. I called you stupid for the same reason I'd call a friend stupid if they were going to buy a new copy of AC:B at Gamestop when a local store had a new copy for 5$ cheaper: because you're literally engaging in a buying practice that will hurt you (assuming you really do support EA's Madden BS with your money). I don't care, because I could call you a million names in whatever order you'd like, and it still doesn't make my arguments about game pricing and piracy any more or less accurate. So, I'll say whatever you'd like it it means we can move the hell on.

Aside from that, I have a question for you. This is not meant as any kind of mockery, nor is it any kind of veiled commentary on you or anything you have said to date. It is a simple, direct query about your intentions here.

Wall of text time. Sorry everyone!

Hypothetical time: let's say that you are completely right. About everything you have said. You have the actual knowledge, skill, education and all that, as you say. Your arguments are accurate and flawless. We are wrong, you can prove it, and we intentionally refuse to listen to you at all, because we're blind, ignorant to the truth and stubborn. We have trolled and baited you because we think it is funny. We have gone out of our way to be as annoying and whiny as we can. Any outside, neutral observation by an equally educated person would agree with you that you have made a perfect case for yourself, and we simply aren't going to accept it because we don't agree with it. Even some of the site staff aren't agreeing with you, and who knows, they may just delete the thread and all you have worked for so far will be gone. They may even go so far as to close your account here and ban you from further activity, because they are also part of the problem. It is a cesspool of everything that is wrong.

Then why are you here?

If you're as educated as you say, and you know what you're talking about, why aren't you writing articles? Actual articles, not some short paragraph or little essay on it, but full-sized, complete articles. Why aren't you making a career of this? You have the brains and guts to do so, and yet you are here, after three days, arguing with people you know aren't being rational or fair-minded. They are closed-minded and just won't listen to rational anything.

Why bother? It seems counter-productive and waste of your skills.

You say you want to educate people and generate discussion and get some people to think about it. If it's a matter of wanting to convince as many gamers as possible, why not go to NeoGAF? They have far more members, way more interaction with each other, and some of the members there are in developer and publisher companies, including the ones we've talked about. They would offer a much bigger audience to share your opinions and views with, they would offer far more and better discussion than we can, and they love this sort of thing.

Even better, Law of The Game has lots of high-end articles about legal matters pertaining to video games. You could hitch up with them and go into any number of things to do with how these companies operate. They have lots of readers, and are routinely mentioned on other sites for their legal issue articles. They even occasionally get involved in actual legal court room stuff from time to time. Think of the exposure your views could get with that. How many people could you get to that way? Hundreds? Thousands? As opposed to here, you might get... what? A couple of dozen or so, at best? And that's if they aren't being stuck-up and thumbing their noses at you for no reason at all.

In fact, why bother with other sites at all? You could have your own site, complete with your own forums. Or a blog. Hell, make your own e-magazine or something with like minded people and publish it online. You're a big proponent of that sort of thing, and you claim to have the proper mindset and expertise to do so. It could be the single biggest platform for your opinions on the internet! You could be on the forefront of who knows what kind of change! What would be stopping you from doing so?

This education you claim to have, why aren't you using it in a way that gets people to really think about these things? Why aren't you fixing the problems from the inside, where it counts? Why bother with such a small community that rejects anything you have to say simply because they want to act cool? Why not get out of the trenches and onto the real battlefield and do some actual good?

You have ~25% of all posts in this topic. That's how many hours? We're just mindless trolls, out for some fun. We don't have anything better to do; this is our lives, sitting here and being childish. You're a serious scholar with something important to say. You could have spent that time far better than on here.

Seriously. Why? Are you really the educated philosophy major with knowledge of things programming and business-oriented? Or are you content with sitting around here and wasting your esteemed education with a bunch of uninformed people who are openly hostile to you and will only heckle you for no reason? Are you not capable of doing better than this?

I guess I'm just wondering why you think this is even a battle that you should be in. If you're the smart guy you say you are, why belittle yourself with us, when you an get involved in the real big fights where you an do some good. Pick you battles and do some good, not sully yourself here in the gutter.

Just.. why bother? It's obvious you will never get enough people here to think about it seriously, and you're just wasting your effort on us peons. Even if you do get anyone going, it's such a small amount of victory for so much effort. You could be doing so much more, but you aren't. Are we just too easy a target for you? If so, then you're no better than us. Are we that uninformed that you feel obligated to try and correct us? If so, you're in for a terribly long ordeal. Is it because you have nowhere else to go? I find that hard to believe, as you should have no problem finding any number of places that would suit you better. I just can not fathom why you think this is worth it. Why bother?

[/hypothetical time]

OK, I think that's almost the character limit for a post. Sorry it came out so long, it was just something I had to ask.

Short answer: I just worked a full week and had three tests in a row; now that I had 4 days in a row off, I didn't want to do work. For some reason, arguing on forums never feels like work to me, regardless of how stubborn the person I'm arguing with is. It's fun, for some reason, and I really enjoy people counter-pointing me; it gives me an opportunity to hone my intellectual skills in an informal setting, AND gives me a great opportunity to learn and fix holes in my own thinking / arguments.

Long answer: Because I realize that I'm still only a 23 year old college student who is still on his way to the philosophy PH.D.; this is capitalist America, and I'm not going to be doing any en mass convincing anytime soon. I'm a patient guy. Honestly, I've never thought about running a website or doing anything serious because I, frankly, don't have the time (and don't know the first thing about websites); I have a hard enough time paying rent right now. To run a site, write in-depth papers, maintain a constant net presence on multiple sites... do all the things you suggest, basically, would be such a drain on my time and resources that I wouldn't be able to go to class and work (full time, mind you).

I spent as much time as I did this weekend because it was a luxury, one that I won't have for QUITE some time. It's just unrealistic, right at this moment, for me to be as gung-ho as I'd (I assure you) LOVE to be about this. I am very passionate about social philosophy and about video games (especially as an art form), but I just don't have the time to pursue what I want right now.

Life sucks, but you make do with what you can.

As far as forums like NeoGAF, I've simply never been, and never thought about it. I'll say that you're wall 'o text wasn't written in vain; you HAVE given me legitimate things to think about. We'll see what happens. I'd love to write and all that... well, we'll see. I know it's going to be a profession someday (that's what I'm working on now), though.